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THE LIBRARY OF 

CONGRESS, 
Two Copies Received 

MAR. 16 1901 

Copyright entry 

CLASS (X^XXc. N». 

COPY B. 



Copyright, 1901, 
Mary MoArthur Tuttle. 



Alili RIGHTS RKSBRVED. 






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Emperor Wilhelm, by W. Camphausen. 
By permission of Berlin Photographic 
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rpHE permission to make the drawings contained in 
this collection was procured by my husband through 
Hon. Nicholas Fish, who was the American Secretary 
of Legation during the years of our residence in Berlin. 
Mr. Fish secured from the Hofmarshallamt the rare 
opportunities which the original letter given opposite 
explains. 

Through the position of my husband, as American 
historian of Prussia, I was accorded every facility while 
making these sketches in the Charlottenburg and Mon- 
bijou Palaces. As they are the only sketches of the kind 
I know of, they will serve, I trust, as object-lessons 
even to advanced students in Prussian history. Two 
of the most interesting ones were lost in a recent fire 
while undergoing the electrotype process. 

M. McA. T. 
Hillsboro, Ohio, February, 1901. 



II 



in 




Original Sketches by Mary McArthur Tuttle 
Copyright owned by the Open Court Maga- 
zine Co., Chicago, and loaned for this work 



Il 



The Mother of an Emperor 

MARY M'A. TUTTLE 

Chapter I 

On a windy March morning considerably over a century ago (1776), 
in the old city of Hanover (Germany), a beautiful princess was bom. 
She had large blue eyes and golden hair. 

The cradle in which they rocked her, when she was large enough 
to be taken from her mother's arms, was a curiously-designed little 
affair of dark, rich wood, lined with green silk. The "sky-blue," the 
baby color of the present age, seems not to have been sought for among 
her belongings. Her home is in a dark, narrow street, busy with 
the traffic of an old German city. Her father is not made governor- 
general of the city until after her birth. To be sure, her aunt is 
the wife of George III of England, and both she and the king ai^e 
very partial to the father of our young princess. 

When only six years old, and the golden hair was beginning to 
turn a trifle brown, she and her sisters were taken out of the house 
very suddenly one day, and when they returned from their walk, they 
were told that their aunt, the Princess Charlotte, would remain with 
them for the present; that their mother had been called away. 

"O. why does mamma stay away so long?" exclaimed Louise, after 
her absence had become unendurable to her. 

"Be quiet, my child," said her Aunt Charlotte, "you shall soon 
go to Darmstadt, and then you will find out all about it." 

It was some time after the children arrived at Darmstadt that 
the grand duchess, their grandmother, had the courage to tell them 
that their mother was dead, and that "Aunt Charlotte" was to be- 
come mamma to them. But alas! Mamma Charlotte also died 
shortly after her marriage, and Prince Karl, robbed thus twice of 
home ties and domestic life, decided to leave his children permanently 
with their maternal grandmother in Darmstadt. 



HHiii^iBS 



2 

Around the castle at Darmstadt in which the grand duchess 
lived, their was a royal old garden. Long avenues of trees, grot- 
toes, rustic seats under widespreading trees. Here the children 
played, and one day little Louise wandered very near a seat where 
a tall, slender man was sitting. He held his head erect, in fact, 
a little thrown back, so that his long, flaxen hair and blue eyes 
were in the full blaze of the sunlight. To the child he looked 
very beautiful, and she continued to wander around and about 
the seat, and finally came so near she could see him writing a 
line, every now and then, on a blank-book, which was opened 
wide, lying on a rustic table which stood in front of this seat. 

This poet, this thinker, scarcely noticed the shadow of the 
little figure moving so quickly about him. He was intent upon 
his great drama of "Don Carlos," and all unaware that his future 
queen played near him, and that one day she would sorrow like 
a sister because of his death. 

Between the year of Louise's birth, 1776, and the year 1790, 
which we are now approaching in her history, many great events 
transpiring in the world were comparatively unknown to her. 
The Assembly of the States-General at Versailles and the storm- 
ing of the Bastile doubtless she heard of, but that the Declara- 
tion of Independence in America was of the date as her birth she 
probably never knew. The Confederation of States, the Consti- 
tution, Washington's inauguration meant very little to a young 
German princess. But the crowning of a German monarch 
which event was near at hand signified much of interest and joy. 

The Grand Duchess of Hesse-Darmstadt was a woman of prac- 
tical mind, and the young princesses of Mecklenberg were re- 
ceiving a most substantial education under her roof. She prom- 
ised them, if they were obedient, she would allow them to go to 
Frankfort to witness the coronation of the Emperor. Leopold 
II of Austria would be crowned at Frankfort. It was the year 
1790, and Louise was fourteen years old. 

As she sat one day, working on a pair of shoes which her 
grandma said "she must finish before she could go" (these were 
the same shoes which. Prince Metternich tells us, she wore 
at the coronation ball the evening he danced with 
her), she looked up with a beaming smile, and said 
to the grand duchess, "O grandma, possibly the beautiful 



wmsmmam 



TAe cMother of an Emperor 3 

French queen, Marie Antoinette, will attend the coronation of the 
Emperor. I should rather see her than any one on earth." 

"O no, my child; that is quite impossible! France is full of ex- 
citement, and the king and queen could not leave Paris." 

The two young princesses started in company with their Hano- 
verian relatives in September for Frankfort. Such an occasion in 
the old capital naturally aroused the wildest enthusiasm. According 
to custom, and that the festivities should be conducted with proper 
order and dignity, the city was divided into as many parts as there 
were electors. Much pomp and rivalry were displayed, the different 
representatives of the various courts vying with one another. The 
elector of Hanover held his court in that part of the city known as 
the Rossmarkt and Grossen Hirschgraben. One of the handsome 
houses in this part of the city belonged to the mother of the dis- 
tinguished poet Goethe. This was not the first coronation Frau 
Rathin had witnessed, nor would it be the last. She wrote to a 
friend that she was *'a prisoner in the house, waiting for the oflScers 
to come and tell her whom she should entertain." "But," continues 
she, "I have always something to do. My son sends me books and 
papers in abundance." 

When it was decided that the two young Darmstadt princesses 
were to be her guests, she was delighted. Her place for witnessing 
the ceremony was in a window in the Romer, near the clock, assigned 
to her out of compliment to her husband's memory, who had been 
one of the chief magistrates of Frankfort. Yes, this cheerful, gay, 
winning "Frau Rathin," as she was called, was in a great glee over 
the arrival of her young guests. 

After returning from the exciting scene of the coronation, she 
and the young princesses went up the highly-polished old stairway in 
her house, which leads to many rooms, and to an alcove which Goethe, 
her distinguished son, especially cared for. There the Frau Rathin 
sat down, almost out of breath from the fatigue and excitemeut of the 
day, and looked around on the table for a letter from Wolfgang; "for 
he certainly has written," she exclaimed, "now that he has failed to 
come." Finding no letter from her son, whom she justly idolized, 
she quieted down for awhile from her usual hilarity. 

The young princesses stood at the window which overlooks the 
old plastered court-yard, and said they wanted a drink of water. 
"Shall we not go," said Louise, "and pump it for ourselves?" and away 



mmsssss^ 



4: l^he cMoiher of an Emperor 

they ran, escaping the notice of Frau Rathin, but alas! not of their 
governess, who spied the young creatures at their sport, and flew 
after them in a rage. This angered the dear, old, good-natured Frau 
Goethe to such a degree, she exclaimed: "Shame on you! I shall 
lock you up in this room before you shall disturb the dear young 
creatures. Are they not bound down enough when with the grand 
duchess by court etiquette? When they are in my house they shall 
do as they please!" 

The Emperor Leopold II of Austria lived only two years after 
his coronation. His crovni was placed upon the head of his son 
Francis II, and once again the old capital was alive with festivity. 
A description of this o<2casion was written by Goethe in his usual 
wealth of diction and local color. 

Louise and her sisters were allowed once more to go to Frank- 
fort, and afterward to attend the ball at Coblentz in honor of the 
coronation. Prince Mettemich writes in his memoirs: "I opened 
the ball with the young Princess Louise of Mecklenburg, who after- 
ward, as Queen of Prussia, was diatinguished for her beauty and 
noble qualities. She is said to have worn shoes on this occasion 
made by her own hands." The haiV was arranged in a most dis- 
tinguished style, which certainly increased the splendor of her face. 
Her full, rosy lips and large, sympathetic eyes attracted admiration 
throughout her entire life, not only from royalty, but from all who 
looked upon her; and her magnificent figure, commanding and self- 
poised, was truly that of a queen. 

The winter of this same year — 1792-1793 — brought an invitation 
to the young princesses to meet Frederick William II of Prussia 
at Mainz, where his army was encamped; for Prussia held herself 
on the defensive during his reign, as she did during the outbreak of 
the Napoleonic wars. 

Goethe tells us that he happened to be in camp at this time, 
and it was partly for his pleasure that a promenade was arranged 
for the princesses. When the hour came for their arrival, he says, 
"I flew to my tent, buckled myself in, and, by peeping through, wit- 
nessed the promenade of the royal party." In the excitement and con- 
fusion of war scenes, which all were accustomed to, these young 
creatures seemed like angels going to and fro among the tents. The 
Orown Prince Frederick and his brother, Ludwig, were equally im- 
pressed by them, and found it no effort to fall in love with them. 



^^Sm 



^he cMother of an Emperor 5 

"She must be the one, or no one on earth," said the crown prince 
in regard to Louise; and sure enough, on Ghristmas-day, 1793, Louise 
gave to Prince Frederick William, in the White Hall of the palace 
at Berlin, a pledge for life; and the tears which filled her large blue 
eyes in that hour testified to her sincerity. Happy beyond expres- 
sion was this young royal pair, realizing little but their own attach- 
ment. The reign of terror which had just begun in France, England 
gone to war, all Europe agitated — these facts had little significance 
to them just now. 

One of the first presents Louise received from her husband was 
a small phaeton. She greatly preferred to drive out in it instead of 
ordering the royal carriage with the eight spanned and the body 
guards. This simplicity of taste rather shocked the ladies in wait- 
ing. The prince and princess were altogether "too modest to suit 
them." ("My single phaeton and iron bedstead," said the late Emperor 
William, "are hereditary privileges. I have the tastes of my mother.") 

The young royal pair became greatly beloved by the people, and 
many anecdotes are preserved in which they are said to have always 
had the poor at heart. One morning, a count and a shoemaker hap- 
pened to be waiting in the anteroom at the same time. "Let the shoe- 
maker come in first," said the crown princess, "he has less time 
than the count." 



I 




Original Hketciies by Mary McArthur Tattle 
Copyright owned by the Open Court Maga- 
zine Co., Chicago, and loaned for tliis work 



H ! ■■ JM i 



mmmmm 



Chapter II 



The news reached Berlin, on a bitter morning in January, 1793, 
just about one month from the time of the wedding in the palace, 
that the King of France had been executed. The following October 
the beautiful Queen of France, Marie Antoinette, followed her hus- 
band on the scaffold. "O, what a revolution!" says Edmund Burke, 
"and what a heart I must have to contemplate, without emotion, 
that elevation and that fall! Little did I dream that I should have 
lived to see such disaster fallen upon her in a nation of gallant men, 
in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers." 

The terrible news from France alarmed every crowned head in 
Europe, and our young crown prince and princess were so saddened 
by the revolutionary state of affairs that they staid quietly in their 
palace, and seemed to have little heart for the elegance about them — 
indeed, court etiquette and court festivities were very irksome to 
them. 

On the 10th of March, which was the birthday of the crown 
princess, the king desired to celebrate it in a manner which would 
convince Louise of his real affection for her. For a gift he pre- 
sented her with a palace at Oranienburg, and then, turning to her, he 
said: "Louise, have you still a wish in your heart?" 

She looked at him with that wonderful charm of countenance 
which was peculiar to her, and said: "Yes, a handful of money for 
the poor." 

"That depends," said the king, "upon how large the handful is 
to be." 

"As large as the heart of the best of kings," was Louise's 
prompt reply. 

She walked through the markets, leaning on the arm of the crown 
prince, and distributed money right and left; and the poor old women 
and the ragged children were overjoyed, not alone with their money, 
but with the sight of the beautiful crown princess. As this was in 
March, she may have worn this very leghorn bonnet which is kept 
among her relics. She is now only seventeen years old, full of 
simplicity, beauty, and unostentatious in every way. Both she and 

6 




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The cMother of an Emperor 7 

the crown prince are truly beloved by the people whom they will, in 
course of time, reign over. 

The following year to the one in which Marie Antoinette and 
Louis XYI were executed, the French had control of all the terri- 
tory west of the Rhine. The Emperor Francis II was weak and 
vacillating, as was also our Prussian King Frederick William II. 
He and the Emperor Francis were anxious to see the French Re- 
public overthrown; but they were also interested in conquests of 
their own — in other words, they had "two irons in the fire," and were 
not very successful in looking after either. 

Our Prussian king has only three more years to live. If he 
could have known this, like most mortals, he would have done dif- 
ferently. He determined, however, in the early months of 1795, 
to withdraw from the coalition of the allied Powers, and made peace 
with the French Republic at Basle. 

In 1796 all Germany east of the Rhine was plundered, overrun 
by the French troops; the same saw the final victories of Napoleon 
Bonaparte over the Austrians in Italy, which led to the conclusion 
of peace by that Power also with France in October, 1797. al- 
though possibly this is an unfair statement, and the treaty 
of Campo Formio can be better understood if stated as follows : 
"The near approach of the French to Vienna induced the Em- 
peror, Francis II, to listen to proposals of peace. An armistice 
was agreed upon, and a few months afterward the important 
treaty of Campo Formio was arranged." 




The bed room in the Charlottenburg Palace occupied by 
Napoleon, which Queen Louise refused to enter again . 




The rootn in the Charlottenburg Palace inade ready 
for Queen Louise after Napoleon's departure 

Original Sketches by Mary McArihiir Tut lU' 
Copyright owned by the Open Court Maga- 
zine Co., (Chicago, and loaned for tliis work 



Chapter III 

It is the beginning of a new century. Frederick William III 
and Louise have reigned four years. The Emperor Francis II de- 
cides to have peace with France at any cost, and so the fabric of 
the old German Empire falls to pieces. No more coronations at Frank- 
fort; few more festivities; and fit of t;- .• ] ■ ' in Germany, 
wt I, .^t for our king and queen. 

But behold in 1871 what takes place? Their son William rises 
up like a giant to create a new German Empire. Could his dis- 
couraged parents, Frederick William III and Louise, have had the 
faith to see in this boy the one who would dispel the gloom and 
re-establish the glory, the family circle would have been less broken 
down; but they only knew that Bonaparte had assumed the title of 
Emperor of the French. Their hopes and ambitions were crushed. 
Frederick William II had died in 1797, and the young king and his 
wife Louise were facing a new century full of alarm and trouble. 

Louise's sense of indignation showed itself even in small affairs. 
After Napoleon had occupied her room, during her absence, in the 
Charlottenburg Palace, the walls, even, had to be rehung, and all 
made new, and even then she would not again enter it. Another 
room, with white muslin and pink silk draperies, and the bed, with a 
green satin quilted comfort thrown over it, is still shown to visitors 
as the room she afterward called "her own." 

It was the policy of Bonaparte to keep Prussia neutral at this 
time, and Frederick William III was only too willing to play the 
part of indifference. He was tired out with the continuous fermenta- 
tion ofSit'Ko^'^^dU^^Ciift^i he had known little else from his youth on, 
and he was a man of domestic habits, satisfied with the joys of his 
home life and his beloved queen. He was a man of excellent per- 
sonal qualities; not very energetic, however, nor ambitious, nor es- 
pecially clear in judgment or intelligence. But Louise, his wife, was 
not only energetic, but ambitious, and with a just pride and apprecia- 
tion for the ancestors of her husband and the true dignity of the 
house of the Hohenzollems. Prussia takes no part, although England, 
Austria, and Russia are more than ever determined to lessen the 

8 



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Urzn,-^ dMyu-i^^^eJ^ AwKf^ ^bdiWJU^ 



TAe cMother of an Emperor 9 

power of Napoleon, the arrogant monarch. Louise warns the king 
of this weak policy. He simply agrees to give up Anspach-Baireuth 
to Bavaria, and take Hanover instead, which provokes England, who 
is Prussia's only friend. The people are growing restless under this 
policy, and Napoleon gives it to England as an offering of peace. 
This arouses Frederick William, and instantly he rises to meet France 
when he must meet her alone. He insults them by taking away 
Hanover, which had just been forced upon them. Dangerous times 
for Prussia to assert herself, with no allies but Saxony and Russia; 
but Frederick William will no longer keep quiet. Louise must now 
arouse herself, also, and so she accompanies the king to the camp 
at Weimar, When the battle begins, she leaves -the camp for Berlin; 
but she had scarce reached the gates when a messenger overtook 
her, saying, "All is lost" 

On the 26th of October the royal family had to flee to Konigsburg, 
the farthest outpost of the kingdom. They soon learned that Berlin 
and Magdeburg and all was lost, in a campaign lasting not much 
more than ten days. 

In July, 1807, the Emperor of Russia, Alexander, and Napoleon 
met on a raft in the river Niemen. There they agreed upon terms 
of peace. Alexander pleaded for Prussia, but Napoleon was ar- 
rogantly unreasonable. Alexander told Frederick William perhaps 
the presence of the queen would soften Napoleon's feelings, and so ' 
the proud queen, the beautiful woman whom he had slandered, had 
to wait at Tilsit for an interview — to meet Napoleon, the man for 
whom she had untold bitterness in her heart. He, with characteristic 
abruptness, not caring for her crushed pride nor her days of exile, 
said: "How could you think of making war upon me?" 

Scarcely able to control her voice, she replied: "Sire, we were 
mistaken in our resources, in our calculations." 

"And you trusted in Frederick's fame, and deceived yourselves?" 
said Napoleon. 

The queen allowed her ingenuous countenance to beam on Na- 
poleon as she again answered him: 

"Sire, in the strength of the great Frederick's fame, we may be 
excused for having been mistaken with respect to our power and 
means at our command, if, indeed, we have been entirely mistaken." 

One of the famous artists of Germany has represented her in 
this dignified moment, as she descends the stairs to meet Napoleon. 



iBBABife 




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y 1* 




PhotogrHph by Courtesy of the 
Open Court Magazine Co , chiratro 



I 



10 TAe cMother of an Emperor 

Napoleon was impressed. He told Talleyrand: "I knew I should see 
a beautiful woman, and a queen with dignified manners, but I found 
the most admirable queen and, at the same time, the most interesting 
woman I have ever seen." She wore, on this occasion, a white crepe 
dress, richly embroidered in silk, which attracted Napoleon's eye. 

"Is it crepe? India gauze?" said he, touching the fine material. 

"Shall we speak of such light things at a moment like this?" 
said Louise. 

Napoleon turned a deaf ear to her pleadings for her country, 
their throne, and their children, for he cared nothing for her crushed 
pride nor her days of exile. Never in his career did he show less 
heart than in that interview at Tilsit. 

The royal ones returned to their sad abode at Konigsburg, the only 
place left them on Prussian soil, where they had already endured 
so much exposure. 

"Let us be steady and patient, and wait, and God will help us," 
said the king. But not until 1809 were they helped back to their 
kingdom. Louise was anxious to visit her father's house the follow- 
ing year. There she died, like a queen, beautiful, beloved, angelic 
even to the last hours. 

She had said during her life she did not care to belong to the 
spirited, highly intellectual heroines who spend their lives outside of 
woman's sphere. She felt herself drawn, not so much to the char- 
acter of Sophia Charlotte, her great predecessor on the throne of 
Prussia, as to the wife of the great Elector, the pious Louise of 
Orange, the similarity to whose name was a great pleasure to her. 
But her own account of herself is possibly not so true a picture of 
her as we get from other sources. Prince Metternich, who danced 
with her at the ball at Coblentz, says, in his "Memoirs:" "Eleven 
years had passed since I had seen the queen. I found her surrounded 
by a true halo of beauty and dignity. Queen Louise was endowed 
with the rarest qualities. She did not excel in what is commonly 
called esprit, but she possessed a refined tact and strength of mind, 
for the exercise of which, in a few years, she had only too many 
opportunities. It would be diflicult to describe the dignity and grace 
of her bearing or the impression of sweetness and tenderness her 
manners made." 

But the beautiful Louise, whom we have admired as a child, as 
a young girl or a crown princess of seventeen, and as a queen, is now 

r 




The Louise lisland. Thier-Gartfn, Berlin. 
Sketch Mary McArthur Tuttle. 



The cMoiher of an Emperor 



11 



about to leave the world, a broken-hearted woman, not knowing even 
that her struggles and her forbearance would stand as a saintly ex- 
ample to the nation. It is the year 1810, and she is dying. The 
splendid victory at Leipsic has n't yet been won, nor has the Te Deum 
over the decisive battle at Waterloo been sung. 

The women of Berlin, three years after her death, gave their gold 
ornaments for the benefit of their country, and received, in place of 
them, iron in like patterns, which are shown as sacred relics in Ger- 
many to this day. 

Reprinted from the Western Christian Advocate, Cincinnati, by courtesy 
of Jennings & Pye, Publishers. 



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